Laura Bell Bundy recently signed a new record deal with Big Machine but it was not without a period of soul-searching. She’d lost her previous record deal and was questioning whether she even wanted to be a country singer anymore before the Big Machine deal came through. “I kinda went through a semi-depression, honestly,” she said. “I lost myself.”

Once she realized she was in a place where she wasn’t being told what to do and had the freedom to go whatever direction she wanted, she took time to figure out where her heart was, career-wise. “I tried to focus on my acting,” she said. “I really did. I was like, ‘You know what? I’m gonna go and I’m really gonna focus on it. Maybe I’ll do a TV show or maybe…’ and I realized I didn’t want to. All I did was go back into the studio.”

Laura Bell wanted to make music, but with a sound all her own. “I wanted to combine beats and banjos and make this organic, cool, country dance music,” she said. “That’s all I wanted to do. I became totally obsessed because I also felt free, finally, to just create. And I realized this is what I want to do. And I realized in that moment the light went off like, ‘You know what? I would rather fail being me having fun doing this than have some mediocre success playing pretend.’”

Her first single, “Two Steps,” is out now and featured on the Dance Y’all EP, available for download at digital retailers. She is currently on tour with Rascal Flatts and working on her next album.

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